Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Return of the Red Hood

Now, opinions vary on the whole "Return of Jason Todd" thing. Some people didn't like it. I can respect that. But when Under the Hood was released I thought it was one of the best Batman stories in years. It's still one of my favorite Batman stories of all time. The writing was fantastic and the artwork was even better.

Jason Todd went from being Batman's Batman's greatest failure to being Batman's greatest nightmare. The horror of his dead sidekick coming back as a villain (or at best a twisted anti-hero) made the New Red hood one of the most intriguing additions to the Batman mythos in years.

Then Grant Morrison got hold of him.

I like a lot of what Grant Morrison does. In fact, I've liked most of his Batman stuff better than most of his other stuff. But I did not like his Red Hood arc. He took Jason Todd, arbitrarily changed his hair color, stuck him in an awful costume, and turned him into a pathetic loser of a villain.

I was really disappointed. Which is why I'm so happy that Judd Winick is coming back to Jason Todd. My hope is he can do some fixing. If the cover image is any sort of indication, things are on the right track. Gone is the silly faceless mask, the red hair, and the skull on the chest. This Jason Todd is the Red Hood I remember. I hope everybody else remembers as well...